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The Bloody Mary is a common “Hair of the dog” drink, reputed to cure hangovers due to its combination of vegetable base (to settle the stomach), salt (to replenish lost electrolytes) and alcohol (to relieve head and body aches). We think The Beach Hut Bloody Mary is good no matter what the aliment. Although particularly liked during Sunday brunch.

The Beach Hut favors a good burger always loaded with cheese, chutney, sauces and salad, with a side of fries. We’ve taken our favourite and changed the recipe to suit the season. Venison is leaner than beef so can be a called an healthier option. But we would always suggest adding cheese to balance the burger.

Swap your sun cream for a woolly hat and head on down to Cornwall to find out why Watergate Bay rocks no matter what the season. Don’t believe us? Here’s our top reasons for visiting the Bay during the winter months.

1. Try something new

If 2015 is your year for trying something new, then there isn’t a better place to start than Watergate Bay. Yes, you can learn to surf, but have you thought about hand planing, kite surfing, wavesking or stand up paddle boarding? You can learn to do it all at the Extreme Academy.

Or, if you like your water a little warmer, how about improving your swimming stroke with our two day Swim Clinic with Salim Ahmed, a professional swim coach.

2. Keep warm and toasty

January and February might be some of the coldest months, but indoors or out we’ll make sure that you are comfortably cared for. Come prepared for the elements and our hotel lobby is the place to leave your coats and wellies ready for your next adventure – our hotel is your home for a couple of days after all.

The Extreme Academy couldn’t be better set up for cold water sports, with high-performance wet suits and a temperature controlled changing room to keep you as warm as possible. And if all that sounds like too much effort, then curl up on the sofa in front of the ocean room log fire and check out our must read 2015 book list from Penguin.

3. Last minute breaks

Winter is the best time to down tools and get away from it all. And the low season is when you’re most likely to get a last minute deal on a getaway break. Add some spontaneity back into your life, pack up the car and we’ll see you in an hour or two.

4. The beaches to yourself

Nothing beats the beach in the summer, apart from the beach in the winter – just wait until you see the beach covered in frost rather than people. Get away from it all. Explore caves and clifftops. Loose yourself. Feel alive. Relax.

5. Food for the soul

After all of that scampering around in the elements, you will have certainly have worked up an appetite. With a handful of places to eat and drink on your doorstep at the Bay, each with a different take on great, local produce, you’ll be spoilt for choice. It’ll be Zacry’s for a changing menu of international and local influenced dishes, The Living Space for rustic sharing platters, The Beach Hut for brilliant burgers or Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen Cornwall for fine Italian inspired fare.

But there are plenty of other great restaurant in north Cornwall, here’s our restaurants.

With 2015 just around the corner, it’s time to start looking ahead at some of the new books and authors that could make it big next year. Here’s our guide to your next great read:

Etta and Otto and Russell and James
Emma Hooper29 January 2015

Described by the author as a “love letter to her homeland, the Canadian prairies”, this truly moving debut beautifully – and with humour and magic – explores the themes of regret and love and the roads not taken.

Etta’s greatest unfulfilled wish, living in the rolling farmland of Saskatchewan, is to see the sea. And so, at the age of eighty-two she gets up very early one morning, takes a rifle, some chocolate, and her best boots, and begins walking the 2,000 miles to water. Meanwhile her husband Otto waits patiently at home, left only with his memories.

Landmarks
Robert Macfarlane5 March 2015

An utterly joyous meditation on words, landscape and the relationship between the two, from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Old Ways.

Landmarks is a field guide to the literature of nature, and contains a glossary comprising thousands of remarkable words used in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales to describe land, nature and weather. With this book, Robert Macfarlane shows that language, well used, is a keen way of knowing landscape, and a vital means of coming to love it.

Our Endless Numbered Days
Claire Fuller26 February 2015

The most impossible-to-put-down novel you will read this year; this is the story of a girl named Peggy and a magical, strange, secret house in the forest. Peggy’s survivalist father, who has been stockpiling provisions for the end which is surely coming soon, takes her from London to a cabin in a remote European forest. There he tells Peggy the rest of the world has disappeared.

Her life is reduced to a piano which makes music but no sound, a forest where all that grows is a means of survival. And a tiny wooden hut that is Everything. She is not seen again for another nine years.

The World Beyond Your Head: How to Flourish in an Age of Distraction
Matthew Crawford9 April 2015

From one of the most influential thinkers of our time this is an essential manifesto on flourishing in the modern world; The World Beyond Your Head investigates the challenge of mastering one’s own mind. With ever-increasing demands on our attention, how do we focus on what’s really important in our lives? Perfect for anyone suffering from tech burnout!

2014 also had stacks of great books, so if you need some more suggestion then take a look at the Penguin best sellers from 2014.

No Christmas dinner is complete without cranberry sauce. It’s the perfect partner with turkey but is also great with any game such as pheasant or venison and works well with duck and cold cuts on Boxing Day.

Method

Soak the ham overnight in a large container of cold water, changing the water at least once, this will remove any excess salt.

Place the ham into a large pan, big enough to cover the ham with water.

Place in the aromats (the carrot, onion, bay, thyme, and peppercorns) cover with cold water and bring up to a boil then reduce to a simmer. From this point the ham will take around two and a half hours to cook.

Keep the ham covered with water throughout the cooking, topping up when needed with hot water.
The way of telling if your ham is cooked is to look at the two bones sticking out of the hock end take hold of the larger bone with a cloth and pull the smaller bone away if it comes out easily your ham is cooked.

If you don’t have the time or a pan big enough to cook your own ham ask your butcher to do it for you and then you can do the baking part yourself.

Leave the ham in the cooking liquid to cool this will retain the moisture in the ham.

When cool remove the ham from the cooking liquor and place in the fridge for at least three to four hours so it is nice and cold. Keep the cooking liquor to make soup.

With a sharp knife score the ham lightly just going through the skin making nice one inch squares.

In the middle of each square press in a clove, this is both decorative and adds flavour.

To prepare the glaze, place the apple juice, sugar, cinnamon and star anise into a pan and bring to the boil, continue to boil for around 5 minutes, this will start the process of thickening the sauce.

Preheat your oven to 150 degrees centigrade and place the ham into a high sided roasting tray. Pour over the syrup and place into the oven.

Every 10 minutes take out the ham and baste with the syrup. As the syrup thickens it will coat the ham more and more and the ham with caramelise. (This process takes about an hour depending on your oven.)

Remove the ham from the oven and continue to baste as it cools as the syrup will thicken further, giving a deeper glaze on the ham.

At this point it is impossible not to pick off little (or not so little) morsel to try dipped in the syrup.
The ham can be carved warm, removing cloves as you go. I like to serve this with cranberry and clementine sauce, new potatoes, pickled red cabbage, coleslaw, cornichon and lots of crusty warm bread .

A favourite from The Living Space, baked Cornish brie, marcona almonds, pine and fir tree honey with Da Bara Bakery sourdough is great for lunch or as a sharing platter with friends. The perfect dish to serve up over the festive holiday.

Method

Place in an oven proof dish a little larger than brie, allowing for ooze factor and cook for 4 minutes until edges are crisping and slightly chard but still holding its shape.

Remove brie from oven and place almonds on top, cover with odysea’s pine and fir honey and return to the oven and bake for another 4 – 5 minutes or just before the cheese gives way.

Serve with warm baked sourdough.

Marcona almonds come from south-eastern Spain, and are, in fact, a new variety developed only 20 or so years ago. Flatter and more rounded than standard almonds, they are packed with rich oil and are sweet, buttery and mild. The best way to eat them is lightly roasted, tossed in a lick of olive oil and sprinkled with salt.

Sourdough bread is a bread product made by a long fermentation of dough using naturally occurring lactobacilli and yeasts. In comparison with breads made quickly with cultivated yeast, it usually has a mildly sour taste because of the lactic acid produced by the lactobacilli.

The hotel is delighted to be working with Penguin Books, who have been publishing the best books and authors for more than 79 years. They’re home to the world’s most respected collection of classic literature, as well as world-beaters, smart thinkers and wimpy kids.

This year Penguin Books made up five of the six Man Booker Prize for Ficton nominees, with Richard Flanagan eventually winning with The Narrow Road to the Deep Northwith.

Penguin have kindly selected a superb Christmas reading list for us to share with our guests – perfect if you’ve got Christmas presents in mind, or for yourself to curl up with during the festive season.